Fractured is an ambitious new open-world sandbox MMORPG that looks set to bring a breath of fresh air to the genre, with skill-focused combat, fully interactable environments, a meaningful race system and a grind-free progression system that allows you to jump straight into the action.
Even the best MMORPGs are guilty of relying on the tried and tested tropes of the genre – such as grinding, button mashing stat-based combat and character races that are pretty much identical other than a few skin swaps. Fractured looks set to address these issues and then some, with it’s open world sandbox MMORPG gameplay that aims to evolve the genre rather than just iterate on it.
Fractured features three different races to choose from, Humans, Beastmen and Demons – each of which will have a dramatic effect on the type of society you grow up in and the ways you can interact with other players. Humans have total freewill to be good or bad as they explore the world of Syndesia, they are subject to the rules of feudal society though and there will be consequences for their actions. Beastmen have a deep connection with nature and are more focused on cooperative and defensive gameplay in their peaceful community. Demons on the other hand are bloodthirsty beings who are driven to prey on each other and other races for their own personal gain.
With a lot of MMOs the real game only starts when you’re 50+ hours in. Fractured challenges this by allowing you to join your friends in some of the games most epic adventures right from the start. Thanks to it’s skill-based combat system even newcomers won’t be underpowered – you don’t earn attribute points through play, you earn knowledge and reputation, which don’t make you more powerful, but do allow you to learn new skills.
There are over 400 abilities and 40 unique stat effects to unlock, with you able assign your skills while you sit by the fire, allowing you to switch up your playstyle and try out different roles with the same character (rather than being being stuck in one role for the entire playtime). The loot system is more realistic too, with every piece of equipment and weaponry in the game being crafted by the players – you won’t be looting a broadsword from the corpse of a dead rat, but you will scavenge crafting items such as bones and fur.
There’s plenty of ways to make a living in Fractured, with you able to become crafters, merchants, farmers, shepherds, miners, woodcutters, hunters and scavengers. You’ll also be able to stake your claim on some land and build a settlement, developing it into a social, trading or military hub, whilst defending it from hostile raids and sieges.
It’s fair to say that although the visuals have been getting better over the years, the MMORPG genre has started to stagnate with its stat-focused grind-heavy gameplay and lack of player freedom. Fractured is packed full of great ideas that could very well be the breath of fresh air the genre needs to evolve. Sign up now to be among the first to set foot in this brave new world.
Sign Up For The Fractured Alpha Here (Click ‘Register Now’, fill in your details and check the bottom tick-box)
Be aware that the Alpha selection may begin near the end of quarter 1 2019 or even delay until quarter 2.
Pre-Alpha begins in October for special people and Alpha 1 begins in December for people who pledged 150(!!!) Euros or more to the Kickstarter campaign
I was actually interested in the game after hearing about it from their first announcement last year but now I’m read into it and its probably going to be an EVE-lite RPG that will be pay to win. It will force you into guilds and groups if you want to get anything done and you can buy the ingame currency which leads to bad things when you involve humans at every level of a game (An example would be the rackets people perpetrate in EVE).
A lot of people from other games with PVP elements have shown up on the forums to potentially just band together and grief the hell out of other people. This has turned me away from the game as well, just from the toxic mindset of some of these people.